This document discusses best practices for developing a successful SharePoint intranet, including establishing a clear strategy, governance framework, and publishing standards. It emphasizes that an intranet is more likely to be good or bad based on how it is implemented and managed, rather than just the SharePoint technology itself. Key recommendations include defining roles and responsibilities, aligning the intranet with business needs and culture, and balancing user experience with organizational requirements through governance.
1. The secret of a
SharePoint
intranet
Mark Morrell
Intranet Pioneer
2. Mark Morrell
Intranet Pioneer since 2011
Previously BT Intranet Manager
SharePoint 2003–2013 experience
Developed and implemented
strategies and governance
frameworks
4. Is SharePoint 'good’ or ‘bad’?
Other factors influence why
SharePoint is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ than
technology.
More likely to be your approach
than SharePoint features.
Depends on how you implement
and manage SharePoint.
5. A good SharePoint intranet
Business requirements
Strategy
Governance principles
Publishing models
Roles, responsibilities and
permissions
Publishing standards
Build on the benefits
6. Why SharePoint?
What are your business
requirements?
What are your timescales?
What are your priorities?
What is your budget?
7. What is the right direction?
Your strategy needs to:
Set purpose, scope and goals
Align with culture and values
Identify roles/responsibilities
Have realistic plans and
timescales
Meet business and legal
requirements
Define content & apps covered
8. Governance is good!
The best intranets help people be
more productive & effective.
A consistently good experience,
supported by governance,
achieves these benefits.
Balance your business needs
with user experience
Essential for SharePoint as the
deciding factor between a good
or bad experience
9. Governance key principles
Intranets differ depending on your
organisation’s:
Size
Type
Culture
BUT some principles are common to
success.
11. Governance scope
Accredited content: authoritative, reliable, up
to date, clear ownership, large audience
Collaborative content: opinion or view that
may change quickly, owned by person or
community
Applications: business process or tool, used
by anyone with right permission
12. Publishing model factors
Is your organisation?
Small
Dynamic
Large
Complex
Culture will help you choose right model
How you manage your content and apps
How governance framework operates
How you improve publishing and user
experiences
13. Publishing models
•Flexible approach on
who is responsible for
publishing, updating
and managing content
•Third parties will
normally publish and
manage content on a
day-to-day basis
•Content owner or
editor responsible for
publishing, updating,
and managing content
•Central team
responsible for
publishing, updating,
and managing content
Centralised Decentralised
HybridOutsourced
15. Owner
This role is ultimately responsible for the
intranet.
The person must be able to make key
decisions.
The owner makes final decisions, based on
information and advice from stakeholders.
16. Champion
This role’s primary purpose is to be the
senior advocate for your intranet.
The owner has organisational authority – the
champion has personal influence and
authority.
The champion is:
An ambassador
Shows purpose of your intranet
Rallies stakeholders to support strategy
Becomes a cheerleader.
17. Steering Group
Stakeholders who act together in “steering”
development of your intranet.
Brings together knowledge, experience and
understanding.
Critical to making best decisions for your
intranet.
Agree clear terms of reference for:
Scope
Membership
Authority
18. Intranet manager
Developing and implementing the strategy
Researching user requirements
Developing the intranet roles and
responsibilities
Developing the publishing standards
Building a publishing community
Building relationships with stakeholders
Undertaking external benchmarking and
research
19. Intranet team
Coordinate activities connected with strategy
and plan.
May be in same part or spread across
business areas and functions, or
outsourced.
Whichever type of team you choose, there
has to be:
A common purpose
Clear priorities
Agreed roles
For it to succeed.
20. Content owners and editors
Make it clear:
What they need to do
Why they need to do it
How they do it.
Content owner is responsible for creating
and maintaining the content they own
throughout life cycle.
Content editor will publish content on behalf
of the content owner.
21. Aligning Intranet and
SharePoint roles
Business role
Intranet manager
Content Owner
Content Editor
SharePoint role
Site Collection Administrator
Site Administrator
Contributor
23. Publishing standards:
Benefits
Improve consistency of user experience
Make people more satisfied
Increase frequency of usage
Improve people’s productivity
Enhance people’s quality of work
25. Ownership
People need to be confident they know who
owns the information.
People need to be able to contact the owner
if they need more information or to clarify
anything.
26. Timeliness
People must be confident that they are using
up-to-date information.
Content should show when it was last
updated or last reviewed.
It must also require content to show when
the next review is due.
27. Security
Information needs to be correctly
categorised.
Only people with permission to view and use
it have access to it.
It will be necessary to balance the different
needs:
People need to be able to access
information easily and avoid unnecessary
logins or passwords
Your organisation has to be confident that
sensitive information is not at risk.
28. Findability
It is vital that all information is easy to find by
the people who need to use it for their work.
There are two aspects to findability:
The quality of the search engine used.
How content is presented by owners.
29. Usability
Information must be usable and valuable.
Features and functionality need to make it
easier for people, not just implemented for
the sake of it.
They should help people to:
Share views
Discover other people and their skills
Find the right information
Use it with minimum of effort and time
30. Accessibility
Everyone, whether they have a disability or
not, needs an equivalent experience.
Employees with a disability may use devices
to assist.
Be compatible with these to avoid risking
breaking accessibility guidelines and
disability laws that apply in the country
where the person works.
31. Navigation
Reduces need to use other ways to find
information.
Good, logical, usable headings and menus
help people navigate quickly.
When navigation is poor and people cannot
access the information easily, search
queries increase.
Worse, users resort to phoning or emailing
other people to ask for help.
32. Copyright
Intellectual property providing exclusive
publication, distribution and usage rights
You cannot use or publish content without
author’s consent.
Copyright owner who may want to be
acknowledged as the owner.
Most countries automatically protect by law
original content published.
33. Compliance
Enforce compliance so people are confident
with integrity of information they use
through:
Educating and training
Managing publishing templates
Auditing and checking
ALL your content owners and editors
37. Why your SharePoint intranet
will succeed
Strategy aligned with organisation goals
Governance hierarchy supported by senior
managers
Publishing standards support consistent
user experience
Governance embedded in SharePoint
People confident intranet is well-managed
38. Thank you. If you want
more…..
Roadmap for SharePoint
governance at 13:30
Learn how to roll out a successful
SharePoint intranet with good
governance.
Editor's Notes
Content owner
This person will be responsible for creating and maintaining the accredited content they own in the digital workspace throughout its life cycle. The content owner must comply with all the publishing standards and use the publishing templates provided for the content. In some cases it may be better to delegate the publishing responsibility to a content editor to act on their behalf e.g. Executive Director responsible for a Council policy with staff member in their online process publishing it.
Content editor
This person will publish content on behalf of the content owner. The content editor must also comply with all the publishing standards and use the publishing templates provided for the content. Before any changes are made to the content they need to get the approval of the content owner first.
Publishing community
It is important that content owners and editors are clear on their roles and responsibilities: why they need to do it, what they need to do and how to do it. All too often publishers can forget these with other priorities and limited time. They are publishing not just for their benefit but also for staff who need to use this information to help with their work. Support will be provided in different ways to minimise costs to reinforce their roles and responsibilities.
Publishing support
By adopting a decentralised publishing model the best way to encourage a common understanding and sense of belonging to a community is to create a digital workspace for content owners and editors to use. It can provide guidance on the best way to publish information. It also helps to show by example how the digital workspace can help publishers and therefore other staff.
Content editors will be updated with any changes or developments that affect what they publish and how they do it. This can be provided through a news desk showing the latest articles or a blog that editors subscribe to and feedback comments. Emails with any urgent and/or important news can be sent directly to content editors and owners. Content owners and editors will have an easy source of helpful information to quickly answer any queries preventing them being able to publish.
Owned and managed
Staff must be confident that all the information they need to use is managed and clearly owned. The digital workspace team also need to be able to contact an owner if there is a problem with their content quickly and easily
Current and updated
Staff must be confident they are using the most up to date information. Staff need to clearly see a review date, in line with our Information Retention Policy, to be assured it is not out of date.
Secure
Permissions need to be correctly set so staff can only use the information they have permission for.
Findable
It is vital that all information is easy to find by staff who need to use it for their work. The amount of extra effort required by a content owner to publish findable content is minimal.
Usable
Information must be usable and valuable to staff using it. Features must make it easy for staff to share views, discover other staff and their skills, find the right information and use what they find with the minimum of effort and time taken.
Accessible
It is mandatory that all content and online processes are accessible to staff whether they have a disability or not.
Writing for the web
Writing content that is published online is totally different to writing for printed matter. There are many things that constitute good writing. They include correct spelling, good grammar, as well as interesting content.
Look and Feel
Have a consistent look and feel so they will know where they are online and quickly move to the next task they need to do.
User feedback
Staff need to be able to share their views on the digital workspace. It is very helpful when developing the digital workspace strategy and plan for the short, medium, and longer term to understand what helps staff most, what could be improved and what is not available that could make a big impact if it could be used.